In Australia, the US and the UK, not only is the electric dryer expensive to 
operate; but it's also destroying the fabric and color of your clothes. 

Have you checked your lint filter lately? Where do you think all of that 
stuff comes from? That gray fuzz that you peel off and throw away USED to be 
the fabric of your clothes! 

With their total household impact, electric clothes dryers are the 
single most expensive appliance in the home to operate. These power consuming 
monsters require an average of 5.7 kwh of power to run. That's nearly TWICE 
the power required to operate an Electric Stove! 

In addition to the massive amount of power electric dryers themselves
consume, for every 20 minutes of their use, the air is sucked out of up to a 
900 sq. mtr area. That means that your heat pump or air conditioner must then 
work to replace the heated or cooled air that has been expelled from your 
home. Add the cost of operation of your furnace/heat pump or air conditioner 
(38% of home energy consumption) to the 5.7 kwh consumed by your dryer and you 
see why your electric bill is so high every month. 

Now, you may ask, "how does all of that really affect me?" The price of 
petrol has risen steeply this year. It stands to reason that the cost will 
continue to rise. Be that as it may, petrol isn't the only thing that's going 
thru the roof. So is the price of diesel, heating oil and natural 
gas........the stuff that most electrical power plants use to generate 
electricity. If you don't believe that, just watch your electric bill this 
spring and summer.

Hanging the Laundry - Frugal Alternative From Pat Veretto, Your Guide to 
Frugal Living which can be found at 
pat verettos frugal 
living blog. 

Use a clothesline or rack and save in more ways than one Estimates of 
"average" costs to dry clothes for a year in a conventional dryer range from 
$120 to $250 a year - or up to $1500, according to some! Seldom do the 
statistics mention whether that's for one person or a ten member family, but 
whichever it is, that's your money going to the wrong place - someone else's 
pocket. 

There was a time when every house (and even some apartment buildings) 
had clotheslines in the back yard that were nearly always used, even when 
energy was cheap. "Solar power" wasn't even a proper phrase back then but 
people hung clothes out to dry because it worked - and it was far more 
convenient than waiting for a dryer to go off so they could unload a bunch of 
clothes, then load up another bunch and be trapped in the house waiting for 
that load of laundry to dry. 

Huh? Yes, that's what I said. You can hang all your clothes at one time, 
and go off to the library or take a nap or go visit a friend. Your clothes 
will all be dry and waiting whenever you want them... not when the machine 
says it's time. If you need more than convenience to convince you, check out 
the figures above. To be honest, I'm not sure how anyone came up with the 
$1500 figure, but even at $120, using a dryer is expensive. It's not just the 
cost of energy - electric or gas - that is a loss. Where do you think all that 
dryer lint comes from? Your clothes. 

Did you ever wonder why clothing doesn't last as long as it used to? 
Believe me, beating them on a rock is gentle compared to what those fibers go 
through in the dryer. Heated, slammed and scrubbed against other clothes 
continually for a minimum of 15 minutes at a time (I know, some things take an 
hour, even!) those fibers get broken and pulled and torn and worn. Have you 
ever had a shirt or pair of pants ruined by pilling? That's what a dryer does. 
Did you ever dry a pair of jeans and have them come out with creases all 
crooked? Thank your dryer. 

And that stain that you missed... it's now permanently set due to the 
heat of your dryer. That heat is enough to set a stain, but it's not enough to 
kill much bacteria or other unwanted growth. As a matter of fact, some can 
wait inside the dark, warm drum until another load is put in. Damp, dark, 
warm... oh, how they love it. Not wanting to sound like a commercial for 
Mother Nature, but maybe so... air dried laundry not only lasts longer, the 
sun helps to remove stains from white clothes, and the ultraviolet rays kills 
bacteria and other dangerous growth, including most fungi. Whew. 

Ok, your objections: 

1. You don't have a clothesline. 2. You don't have room for one in your 
backyard. 3. You live in a tiny apartment where there's no room for your 
clothes, much less a clothesline. 4. You hate the sight of clothes flapping in 
the morning breeze. 5. You hate to hang up clothes. 6. You work and don't have 
time.

My answers:

1. Put one up, they don't cost much. Get someone to make two clothesline 
T-posts and hire a handyman (or your son or husband or neighbor) to dig a hole 
and set the posts in the ground. Use metal clothesline if you can find it. 

2. Use an umbrella type with arms that fold down when not in use. You 
can hang a lot of clothes in a small space. Alternately, use a retractable 
line that all but disappears when you retract it. 

3. Use an indoor clothes drying rack. They make some that fit neatly 
over a bathtub or can be adjusted to a shower stall.

4. See answer above. Or put yours in the garage or laundry room. 
Consider it a necessary evil. 

5. See answer above, again. Just drape them over a rack. Or put shirts, 
pants, etc. on hangars and hang them on the rack. You have to put them on 
hangars anyway. 

6. So you'd rather spend your Saturdays or your evenings running back 
and forth to the dryer? Seriously... think about the convenience of putting 
clothes to dry one night and forgetting about them until the next night.

One more thing. There are some places in this nation that won't allow 
anyone to save money, time, health or the environment by hanging clothes to 
dry out of doors. If you happen to live in one of those communities, please 
consider petitioning for a change in the rules.